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Social Advocacy and Politics: Twitter and the Candidates

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Each of the official candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination used Twitter to promote their announcements. How they used it varies tremendously among them. It is too soon to tell if their initial Twitter splash (twash?) is indicative of things to come, but the contrasts in tactics and results are striking.

Why does this matter, you might ask? Indicators from the last presidential primary season suggests that there is a correlation between who dominates social media and who leads in the polls at any given point in time. While this is not necessarily a predictor of final outcomes, it certainly affects media coverage and public attention at any moment in the campaign cycle.

For example, in 2012, when Herman Cain was leading the GOP field he was also generating the most buzz on his Facebook page. In that week, despite having only one quarter of Mitt Romney’s fan base, Cain generated 50 percent more engagement on his Facebook page than Romney (~45,000 likes, comments and shares compared to ~30,000 for Mitt).

In 2016, the four candidates first out of the box are Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). Each used Twitter to enhance their entry into the race in different ways and with different results.

On day one of his official campaign, Ted Cruz announced his candidacy at 12:09am on March 23, 2015. His announcement followed a handful of teaser tweets alerting his followers that a big announcement was coming at midnight. He tweeted his announcement along with a video. The tweet got 13,515 retweets and 11,858 favorites. The accompanying video was 30-seconds long and narrated by Cruz.

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